Guns In Space

With such nerd topics as how to extinguish the sun with a big water gun:

For those that say “but space has no oxygen so combustion can’t happen!”

As the video states: Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer so firing in space wouldn’t be a problem

Thoughts?

Hat tip: Jared


Comments

18 responses to “Guns In Space”

  1. This nerdgasam is all my fault. Sorry guys.

    -Jared

  2. You misused Forever Alone Guy.

    Or as Dr.Zoidberg would say, “YOU MEME IS BAD! AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD!”

    1. You obviously didn’t watch far enough to hear about the speeding bullet vs. the expansion of the universe. Mr. Bullet will indeed be forever alone…

      1. Yeah, I should probably watch the video before commenting.

        I withdraw my original comment and apologize to all those affected.

  3. “Modern ammunition contains its own oxidizer”
    Yeah… even ancient guns had that. That’s why they’re guns and not slings or bows.

    1. Yeah, Saltpeter is the oxidizer in black powder.

  4. who watched the second vid

  5. I did watch the second one !
    I lilke these guys, they are educational AND interesting, that’s awesome !

    Didn’t watch the third though, I got a life to live. :-)

    1. The third is the same as the first.

  6. In the marriage analogy he could have just as easily said energy goes down along with taxes…

    Interesting mention of the Paris gun, which ranged to 81 miles and until the V2 rockets started flying reached the highest a man made object had ever reached.

    In WW2, the K5 railway gun outranged it reaching an incredible 94 miles firing a dart shaped “pfeilgeschoss” or “arrow shell” from a smoothbore barrel bored out to 31cm.

    http://www.one35th.com/model/k5/k5_ammunition2.htm

    1. El Duderino Avatar
      El Duderino

      If you drive an M1A1 Abrams up onto a berm, and max elevate so the 120mm gun is at a 45 degree angle, a fired depleted uranium sabot will travel approximately 120 kilometers (62 miles). Not militarily useful (it’s an inch thick metal stick, no explosives) but important if you’re into range safety and people live beyond your gunnery center…

      1. Some interesting info on the subject courtesy of fr frog: http://www.frfrogspad.com/miscellg.htm#silver%20bullet

        “Because of the M829’s extreme maximum range a shorter ranged practice round, the M865, was developed. The M865 TPCSDS-T (Target Practice Cone Stabilized Discarding Sabot with Tracer) training round throws a 7.05 pound aluminum dart at 5577 f/s. (This round has very close to the same trajectory out to 2000 meters or so but a MUCH shorter maximum range than the M829 and can thus be safely fired on most tank ranges.) However, within its range it can still kill many armored vehicles quite handily and will reportedly go entirely through the older US M48 tank at 1200 meters. “

  7. USSMunkfish Avatar
    USSMunkfish

    I always thought that Moon bullet thing would be a cool math problem. Add into the mix the Moon’s inconsistent density that makes the gravity all lumpy, and then figure a location to shoot from, a vector, and a velocity to shoot a bullet to get it as near the point of origin as possible after making one orbit.

  8. If you drive an M1A1 Abrams up onto a berm, and max elevate so the 120mm gun is at a 45 degree angle, a fired depleted uranium sabot will travel approximately 120 kilometers (62 miles). Not militarily useful (it’s an inch thick metal stick, no explosives) but important if you’re into range safety and people live beyond your gunnery center…

    Well the Mighty Mo (and other battle ships) could hit targets at about 20 miles with projectiles weighing from 1,900 to 2,700 pounds (860 to 1,200 kg) at a muzzle velocity of 2,690 ft/s (820 m/s) to a maximum range of 42,345 yards (38,720 m) (24.06 mi) using an armor-piercing shell.

    We won’t talk about the Harpoons the Mo got later. ;-)

  9. the videos send you into a loop where you just keep watching the same thing over and over and over, until you cease to exist.

  10. Missed the oppotunity to use some “spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace” sound effects from Portal 2.

  11. Fun fact, on Mars one could hump 3 times as much ammo as one could on Earth

  12. If we had an earth-produced gun in space a standard powder charge would fire, but it would also (more than likely, though possibly not) blow up the receiver for two reasons: (1) There is 0 air pressure in space to press on the outside of the receiver to offer any resistance to the internal pressure of the change (2) the metal and other materials that guns are made of would be so incredibly cold that they would be much much more brittle than they are here on earth. This may not be a catastrophic failure (depending on the receiver design and the pressure of the charge), but I don’t imagine that you could just take any old gun into space and expect it to work for more than one round.